Act deliberately. Whatever you are doing, do it on purpose, consciously, intentionally; not automatically or mechanically. Be present within yourself as you act. Although this is a commonly taught meditation method, it has not been adequately explained what it means to act consciously.
In order to act consciously, try to first observe the difference between what you are doing and how you are doing it. Once you know what to do, watch how you do it. Ask yourself, how do you do this? And then, in answer, do it, as if you are showing someone else how to do it, where the emphasis is on how. Action is this how, whereas the what is just a thought about it. Watch the how.
In essence, the action and the thought about the action are two completely separate things, and while acting, the mind has to become silent, so that the thought about the action does not interfere with the action.
To make this distinction between what and how absolutely clear, you can attempt the following experiment: when you think about what you are going to do, put the thought in the form of a desired state. For example, if you want to wash your hands, the goal state is: “my hands are clean”. In this form of the thought, there should be no verb – so that you don’t get misled into believing that the thought is the action. It should just be a description of the state or condition that you desire to exist, without any sense of action in it. Once you have this form, then the actual act of washing your hands is how you reach that desired state of your hands being clean. When you proceed to wash your hands, be aware that this is how you are reaching your desired state, and consciously, on purpose, perform each movement that constitutes the action.
Pick nearby, trivially reachable goal states to practice this method. If your goal state is too far away, needing many complex decisions and evaluations and analysis, then it becomes easy to get distracted and lose your consciousness.